its surface and that of the neighbouring mainland there lie inexhaustible treasures of coal, which are likely to yield wealthand power to the hand that controls them. At the upper end⑥of the sea she holds Hong-Kong,a hot, unhealthy island, but
an invaluable base from which to threaten and control theneighbouring waters.
Even in the broad, and as yet comparatively untracked Pacific, she is making silent advances towards dominion. The vast continent of Australia, which she has secured, forms its south-western boundary. And pushed out six hundred miles eastward from this lies New Zealand, like a strong outpost, its shores so scooped and torn by the waves that it must be a very paradise of commodious bays and safe havens for the mariner. The soil, too, is of extraordinary fertility; and the climate, though humid, deals kindly with the Englishman"s constitution. Nor is this all; for, advanced from it, north and south, like picket stations, are Norfolk Isle, and the Auckland group, both of which have good harbours. And it requires no prophet"s eye to see that, when England needs posts farther eastward, she will find them among the green coral islets that stud the Pacific.
Turn now your steps homeward, and pause a moment at the⑦Bermudas,those beautiful isles, with their fresh verdure-green gems in the ocean, with air soft and balmy as Eden"s was!
They have their home uses too. They "furnish arrow-root for the sick, and ample supplies of vegetables earlier than sterner climates will yield them. Is this all that can be said ? Reflect a little more deeply. These islands possess a great military and naval dep?t; and a splendid harbour, land-locked, strongly fortified, and difficult of access to strangers; -and all within a few days" sail of the chief ports of the Atlantic shores of the New World. England therefore retains them as a station on the road to her West Indian possessions; and should America go to war with her, she would use it as a base for offensive operations, where she might gather and whence she might hurl upon any " unprotected port all her gigantic naval and military power.
- Atlantic Monthly An American Magazine
NOTES
① The Ph?nician.-The Ph?nicians(natives of Ph?nicia, on the sea-coast of Syria) were the most eminent navigators and traders of antiquity. They planted numerous colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean, the chief of which was Carthage, fifteen centuries before the Christian era.
② Pillars of Hercules.-The Strait of Gibraltar.
③ Rome and Carthage.-They struggled for the mastery of the Mediterranean in the three great Punic Wars (264, 218, 149 B. C.) In the last, Carthage was destroyed.
④ Overland Route.-See lesson on this subject.
⑤ Labuan, a small island in the East Indian Archipelago, on the north-west coast of Borneo.
⑥ Hong-Kong, at the mouth of Canton river, in China. It was taken by the English in 1839, and formally ceded to Britain in 1841.
⑦ Bermudas.-See lesson on Great Ocean Routes .
QUESTIONS
How do Britain"s colonies strengthen her naval power? On what commanding positions has she strongholds? What are the three gates of the Overland Route? Who holds the keys to them? How does Britain command the China Sea? How the Pacific? What do the Bermudas enable her to control?
